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A 14 Year Old Explains Why Socialism Fails
Via Shrey's Finance blog (reportedly a 14 year old Brit's thoughts),
Socialism is one of the biggest breakout economic ideologies of the 20th century. Although the UK general election was won by capitalists, socialism has more advocates than ever before, as a growing contingent are proposing a redistribution of wealth. You just need to look at the 250,000 people who protested on Saturday against the Conservatives’ cuts; only for them to announce £12 billion of welfare cuts a short time later. It is easy to see from this that socialism is becoming increasingly popular in modern society as more and more people are becoming aware of the perceived inequality that exists between the affluent 1% and the rest. However, I am of the opinion that socialism cannot work in modern society, or any society, for that matter, and my reasons are below.
Firstly, socialism does not reward hard work. Say, for example, that Raj works twice as hard as Mark. Surely Raj should be entitled to twice the pay that Mark gets. However, they both get the same. Over time, Raj will grow wise to the unfairness which is blighting his life, and he will work the same amount as Mark, as, after all, they do not get proportional rewards for their labour. This creates a culture of entitlement where everyone feels as though they need rewards for minimal, or no, work. This undermines the basic human principle of “work hard, reap rewards”, and means that laziness is promoted, which can only start a chain reaction towards a gradually more irresponsible society. This means that even the young children, growing up, know that whatever they do, they will just earn the same as someone else and so do not need to work hard, as there is no hope of a large reward, so work ethics stagnate.
Moreover, socialism will also undermine innovation. The great innovators of society, such as Bill Gates, are, mostly, the ones who become members of the 1%. This shows that innovation and producing products which people actually want to buy reap gigantic financial rewards, which is part of the reason that innovation is at an all time high these days. If innovation is not so heavily rewarded through the Socialist “redistribution of wealth”, people will not want to innovate anymore, as they are getting the exact same rewards as the non-innovators, the people who, frankly, add nothing to society. This kills innovation as the rewards are going equally to everyone, in effect, rewarding the non-producers and punishing the producers. It is like, as I read on another website, taking the average of a class and giving everyone in the class the class average. Of course, the worse students in the class would jump at this proposition, however the top students would not be so joyful. This is exactly what socialism stands for, except on a larger scale.
Finally, socialism, contrary to popular belief, undermines the basic moral values of a person and promotes instant gratification. As people, after some years in a socialist society, will be predisposed to getting something for nothing almost instantaneously, they will not want to slog to get what they want and instead will become almost like a small child to his parents, in that they want everything very quickly, having done almost no work to actually achieve it. Now take the example of the small child, and just think that even adults are subscribing to this ideology! This behaviour is toxic in a modern society and will slowly kill the hard working, positive nature that characterised the American Dream. To an extent, we are already seeing this with the Obama administration, with the American public slowly becoming disaffected a-la Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye. Why should they work if they can get everything from the state?
Herein lies the problem with socialism, in that the bad eggs are rewarded and the good eggs are punished. Is this the kind of society we would like to promote? I think not.
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Yes, but the "rule of law" only works until those at the top of pyramid corrupt those who write and execute the laws.
We are heading towards an automated future, and that means that people who used to have a job which is now done by a machine either starve or they live off some portion of the productivity that's generated by the automation.
You can have a safety net and a "socialist" system that still rewards innovation. We don't need to completely flatten the inequality curve, we just need to balance it, and by balancing it, we could actually free up a lot of wasted capital that goes towards keeping a lid on an ever more desperate and marginalized under class.
There are places in this country that spend $80,000 per year (and more) per prisoner for incarceration. If that person murdered someone, sure - it's probably a good use of that money to keep them locked up. But if they commited a nonviolent offense or a 'vice' crime, why aren't we spending that money to prevent their incarceration?
The answer is easy - a large prison state taxes the middle class to create make work jobs for a bunch of other people - usually for those on the economic rung just above the prisoners/welfare recipients.
But why not just pay them to stay home instead? Take an art class. Write some shitty poetry. Anything's got to be better than working for or being caught up in the welfare-police-prison-industrial complex.
Outsourcing and automation will eventually turn the whole country (and the rest of the world) into Eden or Detroit. Right now, the switch on our economic machine is set to "Detroit."
And if we really mess this up, it gets set to "North Korea."
read hayek and mises and come back
"Pure capitalism becomes corrupted and turns into Neo-Feudalism once a few people acquire enough wealth to become de facto Kings. The best and only way to keep that in check is with the rule of law, and using the power of the people to prevent massive wealth inequality and acquisition of dynastic wealth by a few."
So the only way for individuals to stop powerful people from exploiting them is to invest those powerful people with the absolute power to use violence in promotion of their own agenda? Sounds fishy to me.
The rule of law can only exist where there are no rulers and no government which only operate according to their ability to stand above the law. It is not capitalism which hands absolute power to the elites but rather government itself.
Capitalism in no more or less than the sensible realization that if one invests the fruits of today's labor one can be more productive tomorrow. For example if a man can catch five fish by fishing all day and he needs four to survive then he could dry and save the one extra fish for four days, take a day off from fishing and use the time to make a net with which he can catch twenty fish tomorrow. It has absolutely nothing to do with using violence against others. That, as I have noted, is the method by which governments exist.
read hayek and mises and come back
Finish that thought.
Winston Churchill imposed socialism on Britain after the devastation of WW2. Nazified Britain, just like the federal faggots did to the USA.
What makes you think reason has anything to do with this? The brilliance of Christine Legarde?
Socialism fails because there is no benefit to the John Galts. I am not coming. I run things here my way. When they are done, I'll run your things. My way. And you'll pray for me to do it, because I AM THE BEST.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgOA24hAe60
Wrong! Get your history correct!
Winston Churchill and the Conservatives (Tories) were voted out in July 1945, shortly after the end of WWII in Europe.
Churchill was succeeded as Prime Minister by Clement Attlee, whose Labor Party scored a massive landslide in 1945. Labor then proceeded to socialize Britain as best it could over the next 6 years. However, post-WWII austerity was part and parcel of Attlee's tenure. Attlee's Labor Party won re-election in 1950 with a greatly reduced majority, and then lost a snap election in October 1951.
In October 1951 Churchill and the Conservative Party eked out a small victory over the Labor Party and Churchill again became Prime Minister on October 26, 1951. However, the Conservative majority was so small that it was probably impossible for the Conservatives to reverse the damage Labor had done to the country from 1945-1951.
Winston the savior of South Africa was voted out because he decreed Nazi rule over the survivors. But the rule stayed. Just like the banksters did to America through WW1, sending their "dissidents" to the front. See "pardons issued after the American Civil War".
Get smart. Or die. Because of Hillary or whatever crawls down, soon you'll choose your friends by street rules.
Remember this. You don't know what it is to be free. As is documented my ancestors were. As my one gran surviving WW2 taught me, when I was 6.
The truth will out.
Dearest monad,
The crux of the biscuit is that most adults these days are fully-grown children. They never learn to be men/women. They leave 'the nest' only to settle into another nest- that which is comprised of religion, or government, or some combination of both.
Then, there are the sociopaths, who feed upon the childlike needs of the adult children, exploiting their fears and insecurities while wittingly or not, create the conditions which allow the adult children to enslave themselves!
The problem with government is that its only purpose is to create more government.
The problem with the people is that they fail to grasp that they are fully capable of governing themselves, having no need of government by proxy, if they only took responsibility for their own (in)actions.
Gov bigger than state level is too fuckin' big. County level may yet be too big.
My personal preference would be that each individual act as a sovereign nation.
Not gonna happen, because not only are the adults merely wide-eyed children in grown-up bodies, but they believe that -isms are real.
Glad I'm old.
Old won't save you. The shit speeds up. You'll live to see it.
I carried a friend to the VA. After he didn't get care for 5 years, faked diagnosis on his obvious skin cancer. When the veterinarians admitted he had cancer they cut his face up. A GWU alum, with honors. In a VA ward.
Fuck this shit.
Take the justice you can, now. Thats all you'll get. Do it before you're too decrepit.
It would be a step above wonderful if we could actually live in a utopian society, I mean this with all sincerity. BUT, the human factor/behavior will not allow it to succeed, we are truly the enemy of such a civilization so we must adjust accordingly. Socialism, in a pure form, is one such utopia.
And the reason it keeps coming up as a possibility, even after many many failures, is one the above mentioned human conditions - utter stupidity or the inability to learn.
You are probably missing a step : if socialism doesn't work because of the human factor, just change the basic nature of said humanity.
Hence reeducation, media brainwash, cultural marxism, the death of critical minds and rationalism as ideals for our culture, etc.
That's the liberal dream - to build a better human being.
It will never happen because human nature doesn't really change.
Hah - touché!
I believe this was written by a 14 year old, as only someone that young could be so naive to think that 1) we live in a socialist world as opposed to a fascist one, and 2) that "innovation" is what created wealth for most of the .01% as opposed to outright theft.
Fascism is a form of socialism, collectivism, statism. It is why they called themselves, National SOCIALISTS.
It simply nods it's head to the idea that markets can produce useful things like tax revenue. It is autocratic with an all powerful single party just like Communism it's cousin.
Democratic socialism is slightly to the right of fascism. You have an all powerful state that votes what to take away from everyone else and rules all business. There are not set property rights that cannot be abrogated, either. This is most of the Western world.
The Nazis, National socialists or whatever are fascists or corporatists.
This is what we have today. Major corporations that are essentially monopolies with mega billionaire vultures connected to them or doing business with them.
The basic problem is that it is has become commonplace to redefine what socialism is (whether done by the Nazis or Rush Limbaugh), and then say it's bad without any regard to the real definition of socialism. Many Scandinavian countries are somewhat close to what socialism really looks like though they still have elements of capitalism. Either way, they are not autocratic and it is a mistake in my view to equate some socialist policy such as welfare or using taxes to do things like build roads and fund education, with true socialism. If your issue is with any organized government telling anyone what to do and collecting taxes for anything, that is a different debate.
You've said nothing good about Socialism, but you have paid the Scandinavians a nice complement. Remember a perfect people need to government at all. Marxism in all it's forms is nothing more than a mask to be worn by those who seek power, and then discarded once it's achieved. We've seen it play out time and time again, but you think if we just do it harder this time then it will work.
Socialism always dreams of the day it will grow up and become Fascism. Socialism is the purchasing of the votes, and fascism is what emerges when it has secured power. You're as naive as a 14 year old.
Socialism and facsism are the same policy described by different words.
If you can't see that then you are an idiot. You know, like LTER.
Exactly, tmosley! It is like arguing the finer points of the difference between two monarchies. They are both statist and autocratic. They have one official party and the power to do whatever they damned well please.
Unfortunately even if you get everything needed to live you still have to work both physically and mentally to be content. Believe me I tried every way of getting out of working and there just ain't no way to be in human form without paying the piper.
Karl Marx was right, UK punk.
http://www.globalresearch.com/karl-marx-was-right/5452795
Written by a fourteen year old and posted by a 10 year old.
We're all socialist welfare queens. Handouts from the Fed since 2008 kept wall street and home prices in bubbleville. It continues to be the biggest socialist program in history.
We're all socialist welfare queens. Handouts from the Fed since 2008 kept wall street and home prices in bubbleville. It continues to be the biggest socialist program in history.
So far, all economic ideologies failed.
Bill Gates' mother sat with IBM CEO John Opel on the national board of the United Way. Bill is as much an innovator as any of the numerous candidates who's been denied opportunity.
Another icon - Jobs, supposedly an innovator. Can't stand him and his cult, but instead of quoting Burr, I'm just going to post a link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3s-qZsjK8I
Sure, I agree with the article. Just don't like when people who worked within the system and knew how to game it are used as an example for positive reinforcement.
"Say, for example, that Raj works twice as hard as Mark. Surely Raj should be entitled to twice the pay that Mark gets. However, they both get the same."
Interesting choice of names/constrasts there...
Moving right along:
Say for example, that if it weren't for Mark's recent ancestors, people like 'Raj' would still be taking a shit in the same river they drink from, instead of enjoying the (albeit dying) benefits of Western civilization...?
that Crapital should have been recycled to fields like it was in China.
Hey 14 y.o. brilliance ... Way to go!!
Here is central truth, needs much better selling than I do ... Please take a look ...!
Stop whoring for Wall Street.
http://www.showrealhist.com/yTRIAL.html
http://patrick.net/?p=1223928
First the essay was most likely written by a 14 Year Old.
Socialism still fails regardless.
I can demonstrate this...
Firstly, socialism does not reward hard work. Say, for example, that Raj works twice as hard as Mark. Surely Raj should be entitled to twice the pay that Mark gets. However, they both get the same. Over time, Raj will grow wise to the unfairness which is blighting his life, and he will work the same amount as Mark, as, after all, they do not get proportional rewards for their labour. This creates a culture of entitlement where everyone feels as though they need rewards for minimal, or no, work.
Thus Raj believes he is ENTITLED although he is carrying others' dead weight? I thught that the Capitalist rejects the ENTITLEMENT MENTALITY.
This young man believes in ENTITLEMENT and will, unfortunately, develop into being a SOCIALIST.
Furthermore LIFE IS NOT FAIR, either in a Socialist, or, in a Capitalist Paradigm. I am sorry to disillusion this young writer's IDEALISM.
That is how I know that it was penned by someone very young. The concrete expressions give it away.
But giving a damned 14 Year Old kid an audience on a top One Percent blog is really grasping at straws and certainly Zerohedge can do better than that...much better.
Goddamit, Tom! Shitting all over a young and idealistic person's (who is mostly correct, imho) views is no way to advance the cause of individual sovereignty.
Be nice. You can't inspire his/her journey by being a dickhead.
This top one percent blog is precisely that because it sometimes considers information that may not strictly conform to your personal view.
Deal with it.
Damn it.
Touche. acetinker.
Got me on that one.
A much simpler explanation from another Brit:
"The problem with Socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money." - Margaret Thatcher
Socialism must be regarded as an ideology of theft of individual earnings, parasitism on the productive and successful, subjugation of individuals, coercive collectivism, and corruption of government to accomplish these immoral goals.
The only viable effective way to eradicate this social cancer is to destroy all who are infected with the fatal disease.
Fuck the phony work ethic spewed by the elites who want capital to have all the marbles as our economy becomes increasingly automated. Time for guys like the one in the picture, who belong in the 20th century, to figure out a new game plan for when the work goes away.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/07/world-without-work/3...
You'll never work in this town again, kid!
Those who divide the productive wealth neither work nor suffer the lesser compensation of the takers.
ZH now a site for nubile intellectuals ?
Why does my dad have one that works and your's have one that jerks?
My dad is a capitalist and your's is a socialist.
We have reached truth like the FED has reached deleveraged equilibrium.
Keep dreaming you libertarians.
Reality is not a game of ONLY maximising shareholder wealth based on "no holds barred" capitalism. That was Reaganomics. The market was supposed to be Caesar's wife. Turns out she was Messalina not Portia, 'cos a new Caesar was boss man.
It leads to a quarterly report mindset and MVA/EVA evaluation that signed the death warrant of longer term investment and pushed M&A movements towards hyped and oligarchical markets to maximise "fake" MVA/EVA notations by the paid notational hacks ! That's what started the Market ramp on Milken's junk bonds and steroid pumping/dumping à la Gordon Gekko.
Now we have abused it to the point of not knowing its causality. It leads to that last sin on the road to boot hill : deniability. "No we didn't do that. It was the other guy who forced us : the evil empire!" ...Socialism...hahaha! Keynes and consorts. Totally out of context. A forced lie to hide the truth.
Now just look at that time line of Pax Americana, the current empire, and remember all those other empires who sang that same song again and again.
Oligarchs never admit they are the problem ever since the days they raped Cassandra and led to their first downfall.
Caesar had leaden balls, we think they are made of divine fire now that we have lost the flame of truth.
It never fails to work ! This reversal to evil ways.
If that was really from a British 14 year old then I compliment him.
However, when he gets a tad older he will realise that socialism has infected politics in that Cameron is not really a capitalist in the true sense as he thinks but a liberal left-of-centre wally masquerading as a Conservative. When you add Cameron's gross statist approach to the mix, you are a long way from true Conservatism.
There are few genuine right-of-centre Conservatives left nowadays.
Socialism is not a political philosophy. It is a mental disease.
"Socialism" is just tribalism with lipstick.
10,000 years ago, all humans lived in small tribes as hunter/gatherers.
The rules of tribalism were very primitive and very simple:
1. The shaman knows everything. Do what he says.
2. The tribe hunts in the forest, takes what it can get, and shares it "fairly".
3. Anybody else hunting in the forest is an enemy. Kill them and eat them.
Then, someone decided to capture a pair of goats, not eat them right a way, and have more goats for the future.
The goat herder needed a place to raise the goats (private property) and spears to discourage the hunter/gatherers from eating the goats.
Capitalism.
Bottom line: socialism = primitive and poor; capitalism = modern and rich.
Nope.
Capitalism is when the goat herder started selling goats and hired another tribesman to do the herding for him.
Alas, there was a bankster waiting in the woods...
... and usually a few people in the tribe ended up owning most of the goats.
Well ...
THAT'S NOT FAIR, BOB!
So, go back to your tribe and share a possum.
Ok why not have an annual culling of the top 1% and bottom 10%
?
Because that is a sure fire recipe for mediocrity.
Socialism is NOT the same thing as communism. Democratic socialists represent the people over the plutocrats.
The author states that socialism does not work while it seems to be working in several Scandinavian countries just fine... matter of fact many of them have the highest standards of living in the world.
One thing is certain. The status quo with the 1% generating 90% of the wealth ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT WORK. History has already shown us that every time this happens, it leads to social unrest, and even civil war/revolution. If we remain on our current path, it will get worse, A LOT WORSE. Guaranteed!
Most people have been programmed to think Socialism is bad. Reality in the world says otherwise. I urge you to look into what socialism really means and look at those countries that seem to be doing pretty well with it.
Many countries have socialism in their name as the type of government they practice but in many cases it's just a fancy name for a dictatorship or a plutocracy (Example: North Korea).
But then again, THIS country claims to be "democratic republic" when it's really a plutocracy so....
On a long enough time scale ALL GOVERNMENTS FAIL. It all ends at some point. But do I think the Scandinavians are doing better than we are? Damn right I do!
Socialists like at the IMF that fly 1st class and stay in suites in 5 star hotels?
"Democratic" Socialism? Urine idiot. Socialism is by definition anti-democratic because individuals no longer matter.
If bears could vote, they'd vote to be allowed to raid human garbage cans with impunity every night ("for the cubs") because it's easy. But that'd be a very cruel and destructive lifestyle choice for them, now wouldn't it? We won't even let animals do that, so why institutionalize something so irrational and stupid for fellow human beings?
Socialism is the training wheel for communism that always follows when the little dictator steps out on the palace balcony and declares all social contracts are null and void because the crony oligarch system is broke and that the beatings shall continue until morale improves. That's where we're at now. Socialists make promises they can never keep to gullible people who want to believe they can get something for nothing.
Bullshit on Scandanavian socialism. They are all tiny homogenist white countries and Sweden has collapsed a couple of times in recent times. Norway is a hypocrite nation that subsidizes it's socialism with North Sea Oil --- while telling everybody else to stop oil production, "To save the planet." None of them give a shit about you and in crunch time the oligarchs don't care about their own people.
Socialism takes advantage of weak-minded, needy people (*cough* illegal immigrants) who need to be told what to do.
Do you actually believe what you wrote, or are you just fucking with everyone?
Since when was Holland, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark "anti-democratic"?
I honestly couldn't read your shit post any further.
Urine denial.
Voting doesn't matter anymore. Voting is now irrelevant in the West and has no impact. Yes, it's true, so you might as well just go ahead and cry us that river in MENA about it until you feel better.
Icelanders didn't vote for their country to go bankrupt. The people of Cyprus and Greece didn't vote to have their bank deposits stolen. Ditto Argentina and Venezuela. And the people in the pasty white Scandinavian countries are not going to be able to vote themselves any immunity from what's coming, either.
They all gave away their national sovereignty and democracy to the bankers and EU oligarchs who now laugh and sneer at them. No way the tightwads in the Netherlands and Belgium voted to have the EURO/USD crash from 1.48 to 105 to pay for oligarch mistakes.
But they did vote to give away their right to have any future election matter by handing over their sovereignty to become subjects of unelected bureaucrats and oligarchs of an EU Superstate. The planners now run a socialist ponzi scheme on the backs of the people to enrich themselves. The EU is breaking their own laws on a daily basis and just making shit up as they go along. Nobody is voting for any of this and they can't vote to stop it. When nations do threaten to have a national referendum, or try to pick their own leaders, the Oligarchs won't even let them do that.
Our votes don't count in the USA anymore, either. Obama, congress and SCOTUS have become illegal and illigitimate. They are also just making up laws and regulations out of whole cloth and ignoring bipartisan existing, established law. They just do what the oligarchs tell them to do.
It's not coincidence that all the politicians and bankers are rubbing this in our faces right now at the same time. No way, they're doing it because they are all desperate. Democracy was euthanized which is why any peaceful democratic process looks like it is going to be unable to stop this Junkernaut.
I think it would be a great idea to cut down handouts to those who have done nothing whatsoever to earn the money being handed to them by those who create the wealth that drives the economy and the entire society.
I would begin with those who cost the society the most. The banks.
Eliminate all bailouts, privately owned banks should face the consequences of their own actions and fail when they have been run into the ground.
The cost to society because of so called free market capitalism in bailouts, stimulus of many kinds, manipulation of interest rates, legal and illegal, manipulation in stock markets, bond markets, real estate, politics etc, is enormous, and this is something that flies well above the heads of 14 year old kids.
This banking system takes everything that is handed to it and endlessly asks for more, threatens and steals even when it is being granted all kinds of privileges not offered to others.
I would begin with this clearly obvious enormously huge problem, and then go after the nickle and dimes ammounts paid to some members of the general public if that is a profitable thing to do for society.
"The great innovators of society, such as Bill Gates"
Yeah he created an operating system, big deal. Then set up his company to monoplize the whole PC space to crush any futher inovation.
What a poor choice of role model. I am surprised he did not choose Warren Buffet. The octogenarian blood sucker, who's only understanding of life is more profit.
Max
Didn't even really create an operating system, more like lawyered up and was granted a patent on a language that was already in common use.
Gates flat out stole DOS 1.0 and handed off as his own. Gates' real innovation was creating a monopoly on OS for home PCs. His stuff is junk. Download Ubuntu if you want an OS that doth sucketh not.
The only thing Gates ever did was perfect the art of monopoly control while using Windows to bully, buy out, or block any advances by competoitors. Microsoft has always been a Johnnny come lately when it came to new advances, starting with McNeely and Netscape.
Been using Ubuntu (LinuxMint) exclusively for years. I love free stuff.
Windows- Best hairball on a desk I ever had
What else to expect from a person 14 years of age who hasn't even had to balance a payable account yet or earn what backs up that account. Wall Street is big on socialism for itself and very very big on rapacious laissez faire capitalism for eveyone else you little dumbfuck. Now let me explain the debt money-fractional reserve system while I have your attention ya little dumbfuck.
This entire viewpoint is fucking bullshit. It's capitalist rhetoric which is also roundly bullshit. This 14 y old is going to be a fucking great capitalist, republicon. Wipe this bullshit from the site, because it simply isn't true.
This article and all the comments thereafter are one of the reasons I enjoy this site so much. Lively and insightful, the article and the responses are clear with the ultimate aim of getting down to the core and the nitty gritty..... thanks all.
http://www.theliberist.com
For starters 14 years old can explain shit and this post proves it. Author expresses utter confusion, regurgitating pure MSM propaganda nonsense as his own. Not a pretty picture.
The socialist motto is: to everyone according to their labor. It means no labor no money. If you lazy you have no money. It means no exploitation, no speculation no usury or greed.
Obviously none of it was ever implemented to satisfactory degree and socialist countries were merely autocratic regimes that cared more about their own power than the people or ideology and actually followed their social policies after FDR, in fact they had as much democracy and regular election with often multiparty system like in Poland, as in the west i.e. none.
In Italy for 30 years after WWII, PCI Italian communist party WON EVERY single ELECTION alone or in coalition with socialists and was never allowed to form a government, all under so-called US approved democratic constitution.
It never hurts to learn something in the age of 14 unless busy tweeeting.
For brief comparative analysis of “real” socialism and “real” capitalism i.e. systems that actually were implemented under these names regardless of their academic definition I found at:
https://contrarianopinion.wordpress.com/2015/01/06/pools-and-propaganda-...
An honest and interesting discussion on origin of money within human society and its derivative namely financial system and its “products” can be found at:
https://contrarianopinion.wordpress.com/2015/04/14/plutus-and-the-myth-o...
For those still infatuated with “free” markets, benchmarks and indices I suggest fresh look at financial propaganda of deceit at:
https://contrarianopinion.wordpress.com/2015/01/29/invisible-hand-and-other-paranoid-delusions/
For those believing that economy is rational science and economic conditions are result of laws or rules of economy I suggest interesting read on wage economy at:
https://contrarianopinion.wordpress.com/2015/01/28/slaves-of-wage/
And for those who after years of being bombarded by propaganda about Marxism and K. Marx from both sides of political divide, want to separate facts from political fiction I suggest very interesting and comprehensive read on politically motivated myths and misconception about Marx and his writings.
https://contrarianopinion.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/subversive-ideas-of-karl-marx-lessons-unlearned/
Someone get this kid some Mises and Hayek, stat!
Unfortunately, his conclusion is right but his methodology is only half right. Socialism doesn't just mess up the profit incentive: it distorts the entire structure of production and the role of time itself. Through the common/state ownership of the means of production (the most defining feature of socialism), prices of those means of production (land, labor, capital, etc.) can never arise because prices arise out of voluntary exchange, consistent with the subjective theory of value. Socialism legally bans the voluntary exchange of the means of production, and in so doing, it bans any and all rational economic calculation, making it impossible. Because economics is the study of human action regarding the allocation of scarce means/resources towards desired ends, the society itself and in all aspects becomes chaotic, destructive, and returns to a state of primitivism.
Therefore, because primitivism is not socialism, true socialism (as defined by Marx and Engels) is impossible. Socialism purports to be a more rational economic system than capitalism while advocating for the abolition of rational economy, which makes it self-contradictory.
Considering the handicap the kid is suffering from the modern edyookashunal sistim, that his methodology is half right is pretty amazing.
Remember the time Russia tried socialism and it resulted in a perfect system where Stalin and the common man were completely equal, received equal treatment under the law, ate the same amount of food, and ate the same quality of food? Those were good times. Socialism works, bitches!
I don't think that I would use Gates as a shining example of the inventor. After all, he basically cheated his way to owning DOS.
What the fuck article is this? This does not describe socialism at all. This describes communism. They are not the same things. I don't necessarily expect a 14-yr old to know that, but for fuck's sake shouldn't adults? Is it the fact this plays into the American narrative of what socialism is, which has nothing to do with either the definition or the reality? Get a fucking grip.
Whether you are oppressed by socialism or communism, you are still oppressed. The difference is purely academic. Quit nitpicking.
No, it is not academic. They are ENTIRELY different things. You're just parroting the idiotic american narrative. As a previous commenter said:
The socialist motto is: to everyone according to their labor. It means no labor no money. If you lazy you have no money. It means no exploitation, no speculation no usury or greed.
Ram that idea through your thick skull. That statement is truth. The rest of the western world lives it. I suppose now you'll equate it all with Greece, whose problems are a result of pure stupidity more than anything else?
Nitpicking?!
The difference between Denmark today and the Soviet Union is akin to picking nits?!?!
My god you are fucking idiots. Danes oppressed?
Who leads the world in prison population, "rich world" in inequality, and lack of social mobility?
This actually is simplistic enough to make me think it did come from a fourteen year old.
First off, our problem is not socialism or capitalism. It is stealing from our kids in the form of overspending and public, odious debts which are NOW coming home to roost
Secondly, Raj just happens to be the average American boss of the average American company and he is earning 300 times what Mark, his employee, is earning. So you're telling me that Raj is working 300 times harder? Uhhhh, OK.
So Raj is also taking 1/3 off all company profits from his 15,000 workers. This is also due to him working harder or is it because he has a beneficial position in the company whereby the (ethically flawed) rules allow him to skim (some might call it steal) from those that actually worked for it.
Please don't bring up Mr. Gates. His mom apparently was a board member for IBM when he was trying to sell his operating system to them. If you call that hard work, then I can understand why so many of us 'lazy' laborers don't 'work' so hard since it is impossible.
and then there are Gate's kids. Billionaires the day the sperm went crashing into the egg unless their dad is some sort of mean spirited squandering psycho. How is it again that they worked harder than the 10,000 Marks that actually built MSFT and put those billions into the will Gates is going to pass on?
Then there is the banking system that gets a free pass to devalue my hard EARNED assets by printing money out of thin air and lending it to my competitors gambling that one of the dozens of competitors they create for me out of thin air will actually succeed in an overly saturated market in order to supply the need I originally went into business for. And yes, I realized that was a run on and on sentence but it does much more justice to the way the scam runs on
So what is this thing called capitalism you talk about? Sounds like some sort of 18th century fantasy that is placed in front of the donkey cart to make us all work faster
Oh I love the trope that "socialism" always fails. Right wing dipshits that say this always mention Argentina, Venezuela, or Greece as current examples.
Of course, they 100% of the time fail to mention other "socialist" hell holes like Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, Finland, Denmark....just the countries that are universally known as the best places to live if you're an average joe. And if you're middle class and honestly think that you would live a better life in the states than in Sweden, well just keep thinking that...
Of course, that makes sense because Americans are not average, they're far better, and they're all gonna be rich. So we better keep the "death tax" dead and cap gains low so in a land of terrible income and wealth inequality with zero social mobility, the one American who achieves the American dream won't be saddled with the horror show of "paying their fair share".
And by all means, keep thinking Obama is a Socialist. Of course, you can't list one concrete policy action that makes it so, but who cares about logic and reason, you're an American!
Bernie 2016
(Not the Billionaires)
One of my kid's friends was over spouting about how with all the money in the US every worker could make $100k if everyone is paid the same. I didn't challenge the numbers but I posed the following. So who cleans hotel rooms for $100k, who gets to be an actor, who gets to be a doctor for $100k. How do you sort it out? Mouth open, pause...
Congrats! You stumped a dipshit, 12 yr old kid!
and which would stump 2/3 of the adults in the US
I had a conversation with my ditto-head brother-out-law recently, in which he went on a rant only slightly less sophisticated than the 14 yo's rant about the evils of socialism. This was followed shortly by another rant about why the US can't come up with a decent rail system. When I pointed out to him that every country that has highly advanced high speed rail systems is socialist, he was at a loss for words. Lucky for me.
Firstly, socialism does not reward hard work
Capitalism does not distribute wealth to labor:
3.5B/85 is around 42M. So, the richest Oligarchs are working 42 million times harder than the poorest?
Capitalism distributes in prices, and prices are distorted. For example, the earths goods can be monopolized (Oil?) or cartelized, and then prices are raised. Higher prices then reward Oligarchial theft, while damaging economic freedom for others.
In a fully autonomous age, when robots are doing much of the work, how will wealth be distributed? The owners of the robots, if they also own the earth (likely), will take your birthright patrimony and claim it as theirs.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/01/21/global_inequality_oxfam_report_finds_85_richest_people_s_net_worth_equals.html
Moreover, socialism will undermine innovation
A patent is a legal right to have a monopoly for a time period. During this time period the inventor/entrepreneur can take quasi rents and thus earn higher income than the true price value. After the patent period has passed, then the inventor/entrepreneur will have his/her innovation pass into the general domain. This action has nothing to do with socialism, but instead has to do with the law.
Financial Capitalism in the U.S. is now first to patent, and not first to invent. Corporations lobbied for this change. This means that a corporation with a fleet of lawyers can file first and defend, even though they were not first inventor. A corrupt corporation (that could never happen, right?) could hear of an invention through the grapevine, and then rush to patent using its fleet of lawyers. This is a case of capitalism undermining innovation.
Socialism in the past was a way of taking natural monopolies and making them cost effective. For example, railroads in Europe were nationalized, while in the U.S. they were regulated. Otherwise, rail road barons would jack up prices in order to make gains on their monopoly. Inelastic markets in general need to be regulated or government owned to keep their prices in line with their true cost value. In the U.S. the railroads ended up doing regulatory capture of government anyway.
A communist STATIST society will limit innovation, as the entire means of production, including elastic markets comes under domination of a super-oligarchy (the government statists).
Finally, Socialism contrary to popular belief, undermines the basic moral values of a person..
Are the people of Scandinavia immoral? They have socialist societies. Again, a statist communist society does degrade people because it strips from them their ability to be rewarded for their labor, and instead vectors wealth upward toward a political power pyramid.
Today’s financial capitalism is a money power pyramid, where rents are taken in prices. The 85 are a good example of this action. Being rewarded with prices has nothing at all to do with working hard, as the playing field is tilted. For example, in Japan, their medical is 3X lower cost than U.S. Yes, three times cheaper. Medical is a mixed market, therefore some regulation is appropriate in places, and not appropriate in others. In Japan, they have chosen to socialize their medical system. Socializing medical is not optimum, but is still 3x cheaper than “for profit” medical system full of rent extractions, as in the U.S.
Zero work was put into this article. Is the author a socialist? Or just a 14 year old? Really dumb. And lazy.
The premise of this argument sucks. Socialism does not mean that people do not get rewarded for achievement. It doesn't mean everyone earns the same. It doesn't mean you can't make a profit. It doesn't mean price controls. It does mean the worker keeps his proportionate share of the profit his work produces instead of handing that over to an outside owner.
With Bill Gates and Microsoft much of the initial work came from Gates so his proportion of the profits would still have been high. I admit he wouldn't have anywhere near the same net worth, but he still would have more money than he can ever spend. beyond that what is the point anyways?
The government gets involved only by providing the initial capital. Like any lender, they get to keep their noses in the business to ensure they get paid back. After that not so much.
I hate to argue for the idea of socialism but if framed properly I could see it having a chance to work. I do know that our current capitalist system is not working very well for most of the people, even those people who go to work and bust their asses every day. And I hate the ignorance that appears in this type of article which only argues false claims of socialism.
Bill Gates and others got rich in an enviiroment that was seeded with public money. DARPA laid the groundwork. Public investement into research universities is another avenue that helped create the high tech revolution.
There are no such things as free markets. There are such things as lowest cost value.
With lowest cost value, then people have economic freedom. Lowest cost value means that some things should be regulated, and some things can be socialized. In elastic markets, there is good price competition, so minimal regulation is OK.
But, this idea that markets should be unfettered, and it is an ideal state, is not supported by any real reading of history. There are different kinds of markets, and each should be approached to have lowest cost with maximum value. Free loaders will live off the fat of others productivity, and hence will drive prices up and markets will have lower value. Drug companies are a good example, as their costs in the U.S. are much higher than other markets. Therefore, American's are subsidizing lower drug prices elsewhere.
Free markets are free for predators to take rents.
duplicate
All isms fail. The truth is there's no truth and all isms are just interpretations.
Darwinism is the perfect example.
When it all goes to hell...please leave the rich alone! They EARNED their QE, ZIRP, Bailouts don't you know? And crony capitalism isn't evil, it's market/gov't efficiency getting those $ to those who deserve them since they lobbied gov't for that right!
When contagion spreads, don't be rude and upset the rich!
As it was written nearly 2000 years ago; you have repeated. The thumbs down came from someone who did not recognize the sarcasm as you may not have recognized that what you wrote was written in "proverbial stone". Cheers! I give you a thumbs up.
According to God, from His perspective...there is not one who does good,no not one...I would take that into consideration before we begin to label people as good eggs or bad eggs.
America got rich behind tariff walls, and by using its own credit. It was called the American system.
Germany, under the Kaiser did the same thing.
Public money was spent to improve water, improved road networks, ports, bridges, sewer systems. Natural monopolies like power and rail were regulated. Improved health improves all labor, and it was seen that a healthy empowered labor pool could out-produce anybody. Adding in electrification, then labor was multiplied by thousands of horsepower, and then output of goods and services could climb even higher.
Agricultural colleges were public money that extended the farmers productivity.
There are forms of income that are socially unnecessary: Land rent, especially absentee landlords, monopoly rents, and banking interest. Private banking takes a considerable amount for their “social” contribution. Their costs should be limited to fees instead of exponentials of usury.
In order to keep cost value as low as possible, Europe took natural rent producing sectors into the public domain: Major public utilities- transportation, communications, post office, education, public health, and pensions.
In the U.S., it was the same general approach, only it was more privatized with regulation.
“Human action” and “perfect markets” and money is an “invisible veil,” is all funded nonsense designed to cast hypnosis on the unaware. Where do the promulgators of these false theories get their funding? A particular rent-seeking in-group tribe seems to be constantly implicated as using their money power to spread falsehoods.
You're the master of falsehood. It is true that I own myself. It is true that no one else has a right to my life or my labor. Admit those obvious truths and your fantasy is revealed to be fantasy. The only question remaining is your intent in misdirecting others.
It was not government using public (stolen) money which made the vast improvements in human welfare over the 19th and 20th centuries, it was improved technology and cheap energy developed by productive individuals. As Thoreau said:
Yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.
Just words. You own yourself until somebody stronger comes along and kills or enslaves you and rapes and murders your family.
Man's pride and arrogance veil him from the truth and the reality of his fallen condition.
Money allows division of labor. Division of labor allows productivity. Division of labor allows one to concentrate on being a good butcher, baker, or candle stick maker.
Rugged individualism is not what builds out civilization. Civilization is people coming together in “teams” and using their division of labor to then multiply their outputs.
These teams, or countries if you like, need infrastructure to move goods, to communicate, to have free time. OK, no free time if you society is designed to allow rent seeking and stealing.
So, how does rugged individualism and natural order restrain the alpha males, predators, and psychopaths? Unfettered capitalism is free for rent seekers to extract. In the U.S., despite the computer and telecommunication revolution, the standard of living has not really gone up since the early 70’s. It takes two incomes in most Western Countries to raise a family.
So, how is it that productivity has climbed with the advent of high tech, yet free time and standard of living has declined? It is because unfettered, unregulated capitalism has allowed a rent seeking Oligarchy to embed itself like a parasite. The banking and financial sector in particular is parasitical, taking the energy of the producers.
Rent seekers are some of the greatest promulgators of philosophical myths; they have a vested interest in casting a hypnotic pall on the mind of man. Government and Law can be miss-used, for sure. But, it is also the only restraining force that can stop institutionalized rentiers and other would be monopolists.
I find it amusing that people who are rabidly fearful of "socialism" are almost always defenders of democracy. In a democracy, everybody is considered equal (even if they are not) and everybody can vote. This gives as much power to lazy, inbred extras from the set of "Deliverance" as it does to any educated, productive, prudent pillars of society. In time, All democracies fail because they are socialist.
SOCIALISM WILL DIE BUT ENVY WILL ALWAYS BE WITH US...SO IN SOME WAYS SOCIALISM WILL BE TOO SINCE ENVY IS THE ENGINE THAT DRIVES SOCIALISM...IN ALL ITS UGLINESS.
Does envy make your CAPS LOCK KEY STAY ON?
STFU
"undermines the basic moral values of a person and promotes instant gratification."
the same could be said of rapacious, financially-engineered capitalism.
the operating system (money & mainstream economics) is killing ecosystems around the planet which support the 7 billion people on this planet.
you can kiss "civilization" as we know it goodbye by continuing on the same trajectory.
Want all the stuff without all the work?
Become an investor.
Let your Capital do the work, so you can sit on your arse.
How do you think Charlie Munger got so fat?
If you come from a wealthy family perhaps you have come into a trust fund at 18 or a big inheritance is due.
The Capital necessary to ensure you can do sweet FA.
Capitalism is all about Capital (the clue is in the name).
Capital does the work, so you don't have to.
The rentier who lives off the income from his property, investments and securities and does nothing.
Capitalism provides for the idle rich.
"reportedly a 14 year old Brit's thoughts"
Being a Brit I am sure the idle rich can't have escaped his notice.
The old money, idle rich are a lot more noticeable in the UK.
One even tops our rich list, the Duke of Westminster, no work just inheritance.
The people our young princes hang around with are all on trust funds and do sweet FA.
Capital and Capitalism provides.
Finally, I can answer, "What, did an eighth-grader write this?" with, "Oh, actually yes."
While command economies fall to corruption and inefficiency just like our former free market system did, these "whiz kid" type essays and YouTube performances consistently prove to be nauseating garbage. Like we're supposed to applaud some juvenile for some privileged access to higher wisdom when the ignorant little shit is simply bleating out his parents' programming?
It's no different than hearing some fourth-grader itemize a global warming action plan before a spellbound audience, like he's some kind of prodigy... so the fucker's been programmed, so what? Why is that supposed to impress me? Or you?
One of the great lies that's been brainwashed into people for decades is that anybody who is involved with money and wealth is by definition a capitalist. It simply isn't true.
This may be one reason why the Western educational system, MSM and political elites have always described Mussolini and Hitler and a bunch of others as "right wing" or as the BBC say: "far right". Their message being that fascism belongs on the far right of politics. In the UK, even HRH Tony Blair has often been described as "right-wing" due to his penchant for accumulating personal wealth since he left office. But there are plenty of pictures of him on Ban The Bomb marches in London in his earlier life when he was a mere Labour Party member. In truth, he grew up, got some political power and turned to what so many frustrated socialists do: "fascism", which I have often described as "socialism with jackboots".
These people all co-opted the corporate sector (where there are also plenty of socialists) into the governmental decision-making process and are fascists. Musso and Hitler both described themselves correctly as life long socialists. The notion that either of them had the slightest interest in free markets, small government, liberty of the individual, constitutional government or anything else associated with the "right" of politics is risible.
The world is in the shit now because the bankers have run out of other peoples money
Socialism is all about the use (or the threat) of violence.
The socialists on the left use it.
The socialists on the right use it.
Taking lessons from a 14 year old child? - is this what the capititalists are reduced to?
How about an alternative slogan:
"are you sick, disabled, or struggling through no fault of your own? Are you and your descendants starting way back on the grid because your forefathers were slaves and not slavers? - Then socialism is right for you"
It says a lot about a person, or people, when their first thoughts of equality are to look for the worst traits in human beings. It helps with the ideology to think that everyone who doesn't work as hard as you is indeed lazy. This is probably because the thinking is firmly viewed from the point of one-self being the ultimate goal for everyone (arrogant perhaps)
Still, when you read point 1 - you can see clearly that the capititalist supporter only works as hard as his paycheck tells him to - he has never worked hard because his morality prompted him to do so, or his awareness of his contribution to a better world was understood.
It matters not - as Marx predicted, capitalism has failed, markets have collapsed and needed to be supported by governments. This is because the market is not a human thing, but an inhuman thing - so the two cannot exist for long together.
So a new system is born - you may call it what you may, but it's not capitalism for sure, and we're never going back to that system again. Better start thinking up some new labels so you can draw battle lines for your next century of arguments.
Honestism just don't sound catchy enough.....
<<he (the capitalist) has never worked hard because his morality prompted him to do so, or his awareness of his contribution to a better world was understood>>
Rubbish.... in the UK there's a charity called RNLI guys who go to the aid of others without a fee. You don;t know how many of them are 'capitalists'
14? More like 12. WTF is ZH doing publishing such shit?
Socialism for the 1% and Capitalism for the rest - that's what it is.